Apple’s gold iPhone 5S poses with black and white models

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There’s a new iPhone (or two) just around the corner, and Apple apparently isn’t limiting itself to just black and white colors this time out. Apple’s going for the gold with the iPhone 5S. The champagne gold, that is.

Photos of the gold rear casing nestled between a white and a black iPhone 5 found their way on to a Japanese website. Apart from the color, there don’t appear to be any other changes in its design. Cutouts for the volume buttons, nano SIM slot, and ringer switch match up, as do the dock port, speaker grills, and headphone jack.

There may be a subtle tweak to the opening around the iPhone 5S flash, but the top and bottom panels are missing in these photos. Earlier leaked images showed that it’s going to be oblong and not round like the current iPhone.

It’s actually somewhat difficult to tell the gold iPhone apart from its white counterpart in some images. It’s not a brassy, gloss gold. It’s a softer, more subdued gold — more like the champagne color you might find on a late 1960’s muscle car.

There’s a chance that this “leaked” casing isn’t the real thing. We’ve certainly seen that before when a new iPhone is on the way. But with several sources confirming that there isn’t going to be a change in size or aspect ratio with the iPhone 5S, and additional confirmations that a gold model is in the works, the real thing will probably at least bear a strong resemblance to what you see here.

We’ll have to wait until Apple’s event next month to see what the company actually has planned for the new iPhones. Will Lil Jon actually be able to buy a gold iPhone from the Apple store instead of getting one custom made? Will there be a cheaper iPhone 5C in multiple colors? Stay tuned.